Lord criticises China's efforts against piracy
THE United States will remain 'very firm' in making China honour its pledge to stem copyright infringements, Assistant Secretary of State Winston Lord said yesterday in Hong Kong.
Washington remained dissatisfied with China's enforcement of intellectual property rights protection, he said, despite claims by Beijing it had taken action.
But he stopped short of threatening trade sanctions against China if further progress was not made.
'There are still many factories at work producing pirated works,' said Mr Lord.
'The Chinese Government has said it will make efforts to enforce [protection] more fully. But raiding retail shops is not as useful as shutting down factories.' Mr Lord is on a two-week trip through Asia, visiting Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and the Philippines. He left Hong Kong for Manila last night.
But Beijing indicated it was impossible to wipe out all copyright infringements in the near future or to give a timetable for doing so, as demanded by Washington.
'Intellectual property rights protection is a difficult task. It is unrealistic to expect violation to vanish in a short period,' a Chinese foreign trade official told the China Daily yesterday.
'We have done our best to strengthen protection.' Mr Lord said the level of money lost by American businesses to piracy meant Washington would remain serious about implementation of the enforcement deal it agreed with China last year, heading off a trade war.
'We are going to be very firm in implementation as with all our trade agreements,' he said.
'We are still engaging in talks with Beijing. We expect this to continue in the near future so we can avoid problems down the road.' However, it was 'a matter of increasing urgency', meaning high-level talks between the two countries would begin in the near future.
The China Daily said Beijing would continue improving legislation and the application of laws to improve protection.
The Chinese trade official it quoted called on the US and other governments to provide technical assistance and training to help China enforce intellectual property rights protection.
He also appealed for countries, particularly the US, to 'respect their commitments' and co-operate with the drive, saying 32 of China's 34 CD factories were partly owned by overseas investors.
China had sent 3,000 inspectors to monitor markets and compact disc production lines, the newspaper said.
So far, more than three million pirated compact discs have been seized.
The Government had also confiscated 750,000 illegally produced video cassettes, 40,000 pirated computer software disks and 450,000 pirated books by the end of June last year.
US Trade Representative Mickey Kantor last week renewed calls for Beijing to close factories producing illegal CDs and other electronic goods, saying criminal prosecutions were needed.
